The German connection with Australia stems back a long long time.  When Abel Tasman discovered Van Diemens Land in 1642 he was the first European to set foot on it's shores. His flagship, the "Heemskerck" was captained by German born Hollemann.
When The First Fleet and their Captain Arthur Phillip set foot on Australian soil in  January 1788 several Germans and others of German background began settling in Australia both as convicts and civilians. Arthur Phillip himself was the son of a German, Frankfurt born language teacher Jacob Philipp.  The First Fleet included Heinrich Alt, Sydney’s first Surveyor General and founder of Parramatta, and Phillip Schaeffer, Supervisor of the First Fleet.
Victoria’s first large groups of German immigrants arrived in 1849 on four ships. This was made possible as a result of a shortage of farmers and vineyard workers in Victoria where there were big plans to establish vine yards. Victoria saw that German immigration in South Australia was highly succesful and started to pay passages for skilled farmers from Germany to Australia. From the Port Phillip Gazette, December 1846:
A healthy, useful, and moral emigration has been taking place during the last five years between Germany and South Australia. Our Adelaide contemporaries speak in the highest terms of their German colonists (...) We do not envy our neighbours their good fortune in possessing such a useful class of Colonists; but we think that, if possible, this District ought to take some steps to obtain a supply from the German Ports. (...) Port Phillip possesses many agricultural Districts, which would be eminently fitted to receive these hard-working emigrants.
Most of the immigrants could read and write  and were Lutherans from the north of Germany and Prussia. They settled in the north of Melbourne, in what was later to become the suburb of Thomastown.  A lot of skilled vineyard workers moved to the Geelong area and established the community of German Town, which was later to be renamed Grovedale and  is today as a suburb of Geelong.
Those immigrants were followed by hundreds more Germans who rushed to Victoria's gold fields in the hope of striking gold. They were the largest non-British group in Victoria: 10,000 strong in 1861.  About 870 people of German-language background registered mining claims in the Bendigo district alone between 1863 and 1872. Mining partnerships and reef names show memories of the home country. Amongst many others there were: Fruehling's Reef, the Hamburg Flat Reef, the Berlin Reef, the Hoffnung Co., the Prussian Reef Co. and the Albert Mining Co. which was named after Queen Victoria's German husband.
From "The Germans in Australia", Jurgen Tampke, University of New South Wales, 2007:
Until well into the nineteenth century a German could be a person from Alsace, which was ruled by the King of France, or from Hanover, which belonged to England, or from Schleswig, which was part of Denmark. A German could also be a citizen of the free city of Bremen, or a peasant from Brandenburg in the heart of Prussia. By the turn of the century there were about 300 political entities in the German-speaking lands, though the Vienna peace treaties of 1814 that followed the defeat of Napoleonic France reduced this number to 39.
Thus, before the creation of the German Empire, German immigrants asked about their background on arrival in Australia would say that they came from Baden, for example, or from the Palatinate, or from Silesia. And in those early days, since many spoke only their regional or local dialect, they would have faced considerable difficulties in communicating with one other. The Australian authorities could hardly be expected to discern such subtle differences, and hence they were all referred to as ‘Germans’.
With Germany and Britain at war in the early 20th century and Australians fighting for Britain during the First and Second World Wars, a huge wave of anti-German sentiment swept the country. Germans were banned from immigrating, and some of those already here were imprisoned as enemy aliens. From "To the boy in Berlin", Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt, Allen & Unwin 2007:
19th June 1915
....... Harry Davis said father has to report at the police station in Bullandro. A new order for all Germans..... Bernd Mauch has been interned. Father said if they come and get him, mother won't survive it. And me? What am I going to do with the girls?.... Yesterday Gretel came home from Mrs. Croke's crying. She says the other children refuse to play with her and call her names....
After the scond world war, large numbers of Germans began to arrive. Many of them were displaced Persons. Nearly a quarter were Lutheran, while almost 10% were Jewish.
For those of you who are  interested in reading and discovering more about the role of Germans in Australia; have a look at the website of the South Australia's German Club in Adelaide. The Immigration Museum in Melbourne also has interesting documents, books and artifacts in their permanent exhibition and Discovery Centre.
